Of Hipsters and Haircuts
by Love the Starry Night
Summary: Karin's adamant about giving herself a much-needed haircut, but terrified that her cute premed friend-who also happens to be the object of her unwavering affection-won't like it. SakuKarin college au oneshot.


Karin's heels click sharply as she walks briskly down the hall, tying her hair into a ponytail and wondering why the hell she has her bright red pumps on in the first place. Then she remembers—they were the shoes closest to the door, and she wanted to beat her friends to the cafeteria, so on they went and out she went. She hopes to herself that they didn't look _too_ conspicuous (she's wearing black mini-shorts and an off-the-shoulder tee so it _should_ be okay) as she crosses the threshold to the mess hall, attempting to collect herself. After all, she doesn't want to look like she's trying to be the first one to the cafeteria, not in front of—

"Sakura," she says, making an attempt to be casual, having strolled up to the table the girl in question is sitting at. Sakura looks up from the book she has laying open in front of her. It looks to be a textbook—Sakura is premed and takes it very seriously—but she hastily closes it and grins warmly when Karin catches her eye.

"Hi, Karin, you got here fast," she says, tucking a lock of pink behind her ear.

Karin shrugs and crosses her arms, turning her head to hide her blush. "I live in this hall, so it wasn't hard to find." _It wasn't hard to find? Are you a goddamn idiot?_ she berates herself.

Sakura's wearing a lavender tank top decorated with the phases of the moon and faded high-waisted shorts, and mint green rosette studs in her ears that match her eyes and she just looks _too damn cute to be real._

Just then their group of friends—Ino, Hinata, Tenten, and Temari—troop into the cafeteria laden with various knapsacks and binders, and Karin's precious alone time with Sakura is history. The girls all greet each other and go through the lunch line, chatting about classes and campus gossip as they take their seats, Karin doing so rather sullenly. _Couldn't they have waited five more minutes?_

"Tsunade is going crazy, I swear to god," Ino, blonde and glamorous, complains as she stirs her vegetable soup. "Six chapters by Monday. It's _Friday._ Doesn't she understand what college is _for?"_

"Certainly not an education or anything," Temari quips, taking a sip of lemonade. She's there on an athletic scholarship, and is as serious about maintaining her grades as Sakura.

"No one is serious about their education at this point in the week," Ino harrumphs. Her sideswept bangs fall over her forehead as she leans forward, blue eyes sparkling. "There's gonna be an _amazing _party at Kappa Gamma Kappa tonight, and I'm not doing homework even to save my own life. Who's with me?"

"Not me," Sakura says, "Unlike you I'm pursuing an actual degree." Ino frowns at her, and Sakura glares back, until both girls give up on their staring match and grin at each other, bursting into giggles. Karin's a little jealous of how easily they get along. They've been friends since elementary school, and the way Sakura puts it, they've gotten so used to fighting with each other that they might as well be college roommates. Their attunement to each other makes Karin especially envious—it seems like they can hold entire conversations without ever exchanging a word.

"What time are they starting?" Tenten asks. Ino tells her, and Temari pops in saying she'll go, and the three make plans to meet up by the fountain in front of the administration building. Ino then turns to Karin expectantly—Karin and Ino often go together to look out for each other—but Karin declines. She doesn't want a repeat of the last frat party she went to. Two guys grabbed her ass and she had to knee another one in the balls before he got the message that she wasn't interested. And she heard she'd been one of the luckier ones.

The conversation turns to other subjects, and Karin tunes out. She places her glasses next to her tray for safekeeping while she eats—she just never can feel comfortable eating with them on—and lets out an annoyed "tch" when the wispy layers of her bangs fall over her face and tickle her nose. She's eager for the afternoon to arrive, as she plans to cut her hair to chin-length and start fresh. She's going to do it herself, too; she never goes to salons anymore, she doesn't trust anyone with her hair, so she does it herself. And damn if she isn't good at it: she was voted best hair in her graduating class. Maybe she doesn't put much stock in high school accomplishments, but the acknowledgement makes her proud of how far she's come from her first experimentation with the shears (in which she hacked her bangs off and thereafter wore headbands for several weeks).

Karin really wants to open a salon after getting a bachelor's in business and then a degree in cosmetology. Girls—and even some guys—at her old high school often came to her when professionals fucked up their hair, and after she fixed them up they from then on skipped the salon and came straight back to her. After she was done with them, almost every time her "customers" would tell her that she could do things with their hair that certified stylists couldn't, and that made Karin secretly glow with pride.

At any rate, she wants to cut her hair as soon as possible. It's too long now, and with the summer fast approaching she has to do something to keep cool. Besides, she wants to see what she'd look like _without_ long hair—she's had it forever and she's dying for a change.

Karin's suddenly drawn back into the conversation when Temari asks Sakura, almost as if she's read Karin's mind: "Is it true that you don't like long hair? I heard from Shikamaru. He was complaining that you told him he looked terrible."

"I said no such thing! Shikamaru's hair's a mess, that's what I told him; he needs a haircut. All he does is tie it up in a ponytail. But do I dislike long hair?" she paused to consider. "No, It's beautiful, I love it."

Karin's brow furrows immediately, but she hurriedly smooths it over to hide her disappointment, her mood taking a sharp nosedive. She should have known: how many times has Sakura told her that she loves her elbow-length red locks? Karin's lost count, and she's been counting since that very first time when Ino introduced them at a tailgate party last semester (Sakura looked like she was glowing then, dewy with perspiration and the evening sun haloing her rosy hair—Karin fell hard and fast the moment Sakura smiled. She had this…this almost ethereal aura, like a fairy from another world, what with her gentle beauty and her immutable confidence.)

She isn't planning now on skipping her haircut, but she's crestfallen just the same that the girl she's been crushing on since that day won't prefer her new hairstyle. Maybe she can endure? Just braid her hair all the time or something? No, Konoha summers are unbearably hot. Karin doesn't feel like eating anymore.

Hinata, who usually prefers to listen to conversations rather than participate in them, offers a rare contribution to the conversation that shoots a beam of hope into the darkness of Karin's despondency: "But Sakura, you still prefer short hair. You told me that one time, when we went to get haircuts…"

Sakura laughs and grins, resting her chin on her steepled fingers. "I did! Short hair kills me, on guys _and_ girls. It's the cutest thing _ever_."

The heavens break apart and the singing of angels pours from the sky. Karin stares at her friend's face, and hurriedly looks down at her food when Sakura meets her eye and winks cheerfully. Her face hot, she pushes the baby carrots on her plate around with her fork. Suddenly she can't wait for lunch to end, and for the hour-and-a-half of free time she has in between her afternoon classes. She starts to twist the ends of her hair in her fingers, imagining the glorious feeling of her split ends falling to the floor.

The girls finish lunch. Sakura's the last one to go before Karin, and the extra smile that she gives her before hefting her bookbag and strolling out of the mess hall nearly makes Karin's knees go weak. She's glad Sakura's not facing her, or she would see the bright red blush spreading across Karin's face. Karin walks briskly back to her dorm room and arranges her supplies (towel, scissors, spray bottle, comb, clips) before leaving for Trigonometry, her heart a pitter-patter of nervous tap-dancing.

She arrives at the classroom before anyone else, and sits impatiently in her seat. Maybe she should've just skipped. It wasn't like she couldn't afford it; she had the best grades in the class. Trigonometry is ridiculously easy. All her teachers told her what a good mathematician she'd make, and half of her thinks maybe that's what she should be doing instead of cosmetology. Maybe she could double-major—it's only her sophomore year of college, and she still has time to think about it. The better she is at math, at any rate, the better she'll be able to run her salon.

Her best friend Juugo, a big orange-haired guy made entirely of muscle and anxiety, ambles through the door, unceremoniously dropping into the desk beside her as he deposits his backpack on the floor. "Did you get question five?" he asks her without a greeting, pulling his homework from his book. She holds out a hand, and he gives her the paper.

He's at Konoha on an athletic scholarship for football, but he's adamant that his only goal in life is to be a veterinarian. Karin thinks it's the best choice for him—she's known him since high school, when he used to have such an uncontrollable temper that he would lose it at the drop of a hat, and the only thing that could keep him calm was taking care of the goats and pigs and chickens that Oto High kept for agriculture class. He has a hamster in his dorm even though it's techinally against the rules, and though Karin will never admit to it she loves that hamster for all the good it does for him. His rage scared her to death back then. And it terrified him even more, so much more that he developed an anxiety disorder that he's still dealing with in the present day.

Soon the rest of the class files in, and the professor arrives precisely on time as usual. He takes up the homework and calls for his students to open their textbooks to page one-eighty-five, and class begins.

As Professor Iruka (no one knows his last name, and he won't tell anyone) works out equations on the board, Karin only half pays attention, sketching hairstyles in the margins of her notebook paper. Eventually though it just turns into sketches of Sakura, and she hurriedly puts her pen down, embarrassed when she realizes what she's been doing. She feels fifteen again, almost as if she's about to start writing "Mrs. Karin Haruno" all over her papers.

A folded note suddenly lands on her desk. She looks at Juugo, who's doing his best to hold a poker face. Smirking, she unfolds his message.

"_Cutting your hair today?" _it reads. She gives him a look and scribbles her reply, tossing it back to him. He writes something on it and it lands in front of her again. Under her _"text me you loser" _is _"I left my phone in my room." _She looks at her friend and rolls her eyes drolly. He's always forgetting his phone. Someday she's going to glue it to his hand. She shows him the paper, tapping his initial query with a red lacquered fingernail, and nods.

Juugo whispers, "I don't think I've ever seen you with short hair…anything happen with Sakura recently?"

"Piss off," Karin hisses. She told Juugo all about Sakura, of course, like the idiot she is, and now whenever she does something out of the ordinary it's the first thing Juugo asks. (Of course, he's usually right, but his lack of faith in her independence is still annoying.)

Professor Iruka throws a glare over his shoulder in their general direction, the unexplained scar across his face crinkling in annoyance, and they halt their conversation guiltily.

Class eventually ends after what seems like an eternity; Karin, in a chummy mood, invites Juugo to get Starbucks.

They walk side by side through the campus, Karin sipping her iced chai latte with an unusual feeling of great satisfaction. She's not even that annoyed when her hair whips across her face in a sudden blast of hot summer wind. _Okay, a little annoyed. That shit's getting cut off pronto, _she grouches silently as she spits out a few strands that caught in her lipstick.

"How long have you been pining for Sakura Haruno now?" Juugo suddenly asks, interrupting her good mood. She feels like kicking him in the shin.

"I'm not telling you about my personal life anymore," Karin grumbles without addressing his question. "You'll only make fun of me."

Juugo shrugs, smiling but not denying it, and they arrive back at Karin's residence hall. "I just hope you won't cut it too short," Juugo says. "I don't know if you'd like yourself with, what's it called, a pits…"

"Pixie cut," Karin clarifies. She frowns. Juugo isn't one to drag out something she's expressed reluctance to discuss—he may poke fun at her momentarily, with that deadpan way he has, but he never intentionally makes her uncomfortable. "And I'm not cutting it _that_ short. Why do you care so much about my hair, anyways?"

With his free hand Juugo rubs the back of his neck. Karin thinks that he probably could use a haircut soon, too, noting his floppy orange fringe. "I don't know, you'd always mess with it in high school," he says, "like you'd braid it in class and stuff, you really seemed to care about it…I don't want you doing something you'll regret just for a girl you like."

Touched, Karin gawks at him with curious surprise, flushing at his genuine concern. "D-don't be stupid!" she sputters. "I'm cutting it off because it's hella annoying, not because I heard that S-S-Sakura likes short hair or anything!"

Juugo's expression becomes unbearably smug. He stands silently in front of her, coffee in hand, grinning, and Karin, suddenly realizing that she's let the cat out of the bag, and that he'll be attributing every little change in her routine to her feelings for Sakura from now on, smacks him in the shoulder and gives him a shove toward the sidewalk. She can hear him already—_"Karin, you're wearing a tank top today, did Sakura say she liked your shoulders? Karin, you're eating corn for lunch, did you hear Sakura say it was her favorite vegetable?"_

"Get lost, you jackass!" she exclaims hotly, pushing him on his way.

"Bye, Karin," Juugo says with a complacent chuckle. She watches her oldest friend stride away, flipping him off when he turns back around to wave, and flounces huffily inside, tossing her now-empty Starbucks cup into the trash bin.

Her roommate Karui is nowhere to be found, but there's a note on the small whiteboard they hung on their door during fish week: "Out grocery shopping. Everything was moldy. Why the hell was there shampoo in the fridge?"

Karin shrugs and writes a reply underneath (Karui keeps a very strange schedule and they only see each other very rarely; Karin figures that Karui will see her note before she actually sees her) and then gets to her hair.

After a thorough wash in the shower, she towel-dries her hair gently and lets it lay across her shoulders as she arranges her tools again, checking the sharpness of her shears one last time before deciding she was ready.

She weaves her hair into a braid, spritzes it once with water, lifts her scissors and…should she really do this? She's endured the heat with long hair before, she can do it again…_it's just one snip, it's not like you're cutting off a finger, you idiot! _The plait falls to the floor.

She feels a sudden surge of grief, but forces herself to keep looking in the mirror, not to look down, don't look down…

"Karin, I forgot to ask you at lunch—oh my god!"

Karin whips around, expecting her hair to swing around with her and feeling a strange sense of incompletion when it doesn't. Instead the ends flutter lightly around, far more genial than the heavy sheet of hair that's now lying plaited on the floor. Sakura is standing at the door, the door Karin left open because she hates closed doors, and she's staring with pink eyebrows raised at the crimson braid at Karin's feet. Suddenly, Karin's terrified—does she think it looks bad? Did Karin chop off too much? Was there an enormous, bleeding gash on her ear that she couldn't feel?

"I—I needed a summer cut," she stammers in explanation. "It's too damn hot for long hair…" She trails off as Sakura continues to stare at the detached braid.

Sakura earnestly directs her attention back to Karin, smiling brightly. "It looks really cute!" she insists. "I've never seen you with short hair. I didn't thought about it before, but of course you look good with it."

Sakura's words echo in Karin's ears, and at once the plait of hair on the floor doesn't feel like a missing appendage. A blush creeps across Karin's cheeks, but she powers through it forcefully, saying, "Well, I'm not done yet. I'm not gonna leave it like this, it looks horrid."

Sakura pulls Karin's chair away from her desk and sits backward in it, arms crossed and resting on the edge of the seat back. "I ran across Karui the other day, she told me you cut your own hair. Is it ok if I watch? I've never known anyone who did their own before."

"S-suit yourself," Karin stammers, reeling over the fact that the girl she likes had a conversation with her roommate about her. Karin's afraid that she's going to accidentally cut herself, what with how shaky she's suddenly become. It's embarrassing—her normally airtight persona of disgruntled nonchalance falls to pieces every time that oblivious pink-haired hipster walks within fifty feet of her. It's pathetic, really, how Sakura can make her so nervous and so giddy and so defensive all at once. She really has it bad for the girl, and there's nothing she can do about it.

Karin side-eyes Sakura's reflection in the mirror. Who _wouldn't_ crush on Sakura? She's gorgeous, inside and out—fae-like with pink hair and ivory skin, and pale green eyes that pierce like daggers, and a sort of unconditional kindness that simply _makes_ people like her. She's smart, too, and witty, and considerate, and _pay attention to your scissors or you'll cut your ear off!_

She spritzes her hair again after ruffling the ends with her fingers, testing the way it hangs around her jaw and studying the way it looks at various angles. She hopes that Sakura isn't getting bored, but when she sneaks a peek at her, her friend's expression is interested and not at all uninterested. Reassured, Karin approaches her hair in a slightly more confident manner.

She starts by layering the ends slightly, examining the effect. It looks good, she decides, but too…too clean for her liking. She slides a pinch of hair between two fingers and makes a deep cut upwards—the layering is far more drastic now, and she automatically loves it. She takes another pinch and cuts again, and again, until her hair is even shorter, barely going past her jaw.

She's almost there—the choppiness is right, but something is missing. She studies the various angles once again. Remembering her old hairstyle, Karin figures it out; she takes hold of her bangs and chops at them until they fall across her forehead, and then cuts one of the sides framing her face until it's noticeably shorter than the other and her ear is completely visible. "Perfect," she murmurs, setting down her scissors. Her hair is now an asymmetrical bob, hanging in abrupt layers around her face. She's proud—no stylist in the city could have given her this hairstyle, she'd bet her college tuition on it.

"Wow," Sakura says, startling Karin back into the world where it isn't just her and her hair. Her voice is more admiring than Karin has ever heard it. "You're amazing, you look beautiful…"

Karin can't help herself—she turns and grins. "Y-y-you think so?!" she demands eagerly.

Sakura nods. "Absolutely! You're a natural, Karin. You should do that for a living. Watching you was—what's the word I'm looking for…it was _mesmerizing. _I could tell you knew what you were doing." Sakura's praise to Karin feels like drinking ice-cold sweet tea in the middle of a sweltering summer day. She soaks it in almost greedily, tucking it into herself like it's a precious treasure, burning the words into her brain to be replayed again and again when she lays down to sleep.

"Well, I've been doing it for a long time," she says braggingly. "I've done my own hair since high school."

"That's amazing, Karin! If you ever open a beauty parlor, I'll be your first customer, I promise," Sakura says with a smile and a laugh.

The promise for the future turns Karin beet red. "I—I wouldn't make you pay, don't be stupid!" she stammers, automatically giving herself a mental kick in the ass. _Why did you say that, you idiot?_

Sakura's brows raise in surprise. Is she…is she _blushing?_ "Karin, you can't do that, I mean, giving your friends free haircuts…you wouldn't make any money…" she trails off.

Karin can't believe herself when she mumbles, almost inaudibly, "Not friends…just you."

She's ready to keel over right then and there. _Why did I say that?! Goddammit, why not just yell out that you like her and be done with it! Stupid! _Meanwhile Sakura has gone very quiet, staring at Karin and quickly turning bright red. Karin's terrified that she's backed her friend into a corner.

"I-I'm sorry," she says hastily, scrambling for the right thing to say. "I shouldn't have—"

"No!" Sakura cries. "No, Karin, don't be sorry, I just…" she presses her hands to her cheeks, gazing shyly up at Karin through her eyelashes. It's the cutest thing Karin's ever seen. "When…when you said that…it surprised me! I was…I mean, it made me really happy…coming from _you, _of all people…"

Karin draws a blank, emotionally overheating from Sakura's admission. What did she mean, though? It sounded like Sakura was saying that her joy at being promised free haircuts came more from the fact that it was Karin who promised them than it did from the actual haircuts themselves. Did that mean that Sakura might…like Karin? If she does—how long has she liked her? Karin rubs her neck, face flaming, not knowing what to say, thinking that getting her own hopes up was only setting her up for failure, until Sakura speaks up.

"Karin…are you doing anything after your last class?" she asks, her voice shy.

"N-no," Karin answers, hardly daring to hope for what Sakura might be about to ask.

"Well, I don't know if you've been to The Crust yet…it's my favorite pizza place on Main Street…do you want to go there with me for dinner? Tonight? Just you and me?"

Karin can't breathe. She's dreaming—she's sure she is. The impossible is happening right there in her dorm room, and she doesn't want to wake up. She forces out the only word she wants to say, the only word she's ever wanted to say to Sakura: "Yes."

Sakura rises suddenly from her chair, face pink and beaming. "Great! Um, yeah, that's—really great!" She's nervous, Karin realizes, and remembers that Sakura came into her room saying that she wanted to ask her something. Did that mean…that Sakura _intended_ to ask her out in the first place?

"How about I meet you here at, um, six?" Sakura continues, her voice breathy.

Karin nods shakily. "That's fine, I'll be here."

"Okay!" Sakura exclaims. She nearly knocks the chair over as she starts clumsily toward the door. "I've gotta get to class now, but I'll see you later, okay? I'll text you when I get out!"

"Okay," Karin says feebly. "See you later…"

Sakura bumps into the footboard at the end of Karin's bed before finally making it out of the room. "Your hair looks so pretty, Karin, I'm glad I got to see it first!"

Karin smiles, the kind of giddy smile she never lets anyone see, and turns to the mirror, heart soaring, meeting her reflection's gaze as though to make sure that it could believe what just happened, too. Judging by its expression, it couldn't either. She shakes her hair vigorously to dislodge any stray cuttings, and admires her work. _Sakura thinks it's pretty._ Already she wants her next class to be over, to be here in this room again, to meet Sakura and stand awkwardly at the threshold while they both blush and try to look for the right words to say. She'll have to lay out the perfect outfit, and make sure her contacts are clean, and…

Her phone dings on her nightstand—it's Juugo's ringtone. She smirks. There's no _way_ she's telling him anything.

She checks the message he sent her, suddenly letting out a noise of frustration, eyes widening in disbelief. _What time is she picking u up? _he'd sent.

**A/N: **Started shipping sakukarin pretty hardcore a while back and this plot bunny dug a rabbit hole in my brain. Inspired in part by this lovely piece of art I found on Tumblr: post/84873032638/all-the-symbolic-hair-cutting-she-cuts-her-hair. Hope y'all enjoyed!


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